Christmas On The Silver Horn Ranch. Stella Bagwell

      His remark must have hit the mark, because her lips suddenly formed a small O and the rigid line of her shoulders drooped.

      “You’re right, Bowie. I was kissing you, too. Which gives me two reasons why I can’t remain your nurse.”

      Just hearing her say she was leaving and not coming back was enough to shake Bowie. “Ava, I’m sorry.”

      Her expression sober, she studied his face. “I’m sure. You must be feeling like an idiot for letting yourself kiss an older woman.”

      “I’m not sorry about that! I’m not sorry about anything I’ve done!”

      “You just said you were,” she reminded him.

      “That because I thought it was what you wanted to hear,” he admitted.

      With an exasperated groan, she started to step around him, but Bowie tightened his hold on her wrist and rose from the dressing bench to stand in front of her.

      “You’re incredible!” she muttered. “Totally incredible!”

      “And if you quit, what is that going to make you? A nurse who was incapable of handling her patient?”

      Incensed, she stared at him. “That’s a low blow, Bowie. Really low.”

      Ashamed of himself, he eased his hold on her wrist and slowly slid his hand up her forearm. Even with an angry glare on her face, it was heavenly to touch her, to be close enough to smell her perfume, to feel the heat of her body.

      “You’re right. And I’m sorry. This time I do mean it. And I don’t want you to leave. You’re the first woman to—” Unsure of how to go on without making a gushing fool of himself, he turned away from her and swiped a hand over his face. To his surprise, he found his fingers were trembling.

      What was happening to him? In spite of his injuries, he wasn’t physically weak. Not to the point of having the shakes.

      “The first woman to what?” she prompted.

      “Nothing. I don’t know why I said that.” He twisted back to her. “Ava, there’s something going on between us. You know it as well as I do.”

      His gaze picked up the flare of her nostrils, then dropped to her lips. The kiss had left them puffy, and the rose-colored lipstick she’d been wearing earlier was now gone. Bowie wished he had every right to lean into her and kiss her all over again.

      “That’s another reason why you need a different nurse,” she said tersely. “I—I’ve hardly been behaving like a professional.”

      “That’s my fault. Not yours,” he said quickly.

      “All the same, I—”

      Wrapping his hands around her upper arms, he leaned toward her. “I’ll behave myself, Ava. Just promise you won’t quit. I need you.”

      Her expression turned cynical. “Anybody can change a bandage. That’s all you need.”

      “If that’s all there was to it, then I’d get my brother or dad to take care of me.”

      She leveled a stern look at him. “Those burns are serious, Bowie.”

      And so was the way she made him feel, Bowie thought. Yet he was smart enough to keep that bit of information to himself. She wasn’t ready to hear it. She might never be ready. But he wanted the chance to know her better, to find out exactly what this electricity between them was all about.

      “That’s why I need you. To make sure they keep healing.”

      Groaning, she turned her head to one side and Bowie’s gaze was drawn to her slender throat. He wanted to kiss her there. Just as much as he wanted to kiss her lips again.

      “I don’t know why I’m doing this,” she said quietly. “And it’s against my better judgment, but I’ll give this one more try. But we are going to be patient and nurse. Nothing else. Understand?”

      Relief poured through him, and Bowie wondered if he was going crazy. No woman should be having this much effect on him. Especially a widow who wanted nothing to do with him. Or did she? Her kiss had certainly said there was something she liked about him.

      “What about friends?” he asked. “We can be that, can’t we?”

      She studied him for long moments and then finally a smile of surrender spread across her face. “Friends. Just friends.”

      “Great.”

      He maneuvered his way around the dressing bench and took a seat with his back to her.

      “What are you doing now?” she wanted to know.

      “I think the front of me is pretty clean. But you haven’t done my back.”

      A stretch of silence passed before he felt the washcloth between his shoulder blades. As water rolled down his backbone, he grinned to himself.

      Ava Archer was quite a woman.

      * * *

      Ava had just stepped out of the shower the next morning when she heard the phone ringing. Annoyed at the interruption, she hurriedly dried off, but before she could finish wrapping a fleece robe around her, the ringing stopped.

      Out in the bedroom, she checked the call log on the nightstand phone and was surprised to see the caller had been her mother.

      Since Velda Archer rarely called her daughter at this time of the morning, Ava decided she’d better check in.

      Velda answered cheerfully on the second ring. “Good morning, honey. Did I wake you?”

      “I was in the shower. Is anything wrong?”

      “No. I just wanted to ask you about your plans for Christmas.”

      Ava sank onto the edge of the bed. “Christmas? Mother, it’s only the fourth of December. The holiday is a long way off yet.”

      “Not as far as your father and I are concerned.”

      Even though Ava’s parents had been divorced for the past ten years, they spent more time together than they did apart. They clearly loved each other, yet they couldn’t live under the same roof for more than two weeks at a time.

      “Oh, so what do you two have planned?”

      “I’m leaving this morning for San Diego. Stu has a bunch of things planned for us to do. Including a trip up to Santa Anita.”

      “And probably a trip down Rodeo Drive. Like a shopping trip,” Ava added sagely.

      Velda laughed. “Honey, you know your father isn’t that rich. Comfortable, but hardly rich enough to shop on Rodeo Drive. Still, he’s promised he has a nice surprise hidden away for my Christmas gift. I’m guessing jewelry. He knows how much I love diamonds.”

      Even though her mother couldn’t see her, Ava shook her head in wry disbelief. “Along with emeralds, sapphires, rubies and any other colored stone known to man. Mother, you’re shameless. You won’t sleep with Dad, yet you’ll accept his gifts.”

      There was a long pause before Velda laughed. “Not sleep with him? Ava, where in the world did you get that idea? Sex is the best thing we have going for us.”

      Leave it to her mother to be so blunt. “But you two are divorced.”

      “What’s that got to do with it? A piece of paper hasn’t altered our feelings for each other. It just means if we try to live with each other twenty-four hours of every day, then I start getting on his nerves and he starts getting on mine.”